The Hollow Crown
Chapter Two
The Boy named Pierto
September 1991
Edinburgh, Scotland
The innocuous, and entirely immaculate black shirt stared up at them from its oasis of crisp blue linen. Neat little buttons winked in the lamplight. Please, it seemed to beg, like a virginal maiden in a gossamer nightgown, don't rob me of my virtue.
"You know this is nothing, nothing, compared to what Oskar is arriving as," said Rob, lighting the end of his cigarette.
"Don't tell me," said Pierto weakly, "He's going as the Archbishop of somewhere or another." You are a damned man. In his mind's eye, he could already see Sister Martha approaching, her lips bared into a thin wispy line.
"No. He's going all out and coming as the Pope. His sister's making him a paper hat and everything," said Rob remorselessly, sticking the half-finished fag behind his ear for safekeeping.
"St Peters. It's the Crown of St Peter's," said Pierto, remembering the lofty dome that had graced the head of Christ's Vicar. "You know I've met the Pope. He gave me some rosary beads."
Rob pondered this piece of information. "You could lend them to Oskar. It might add some authenticity to it. Does it say on them that they're from the Pope?"
"Are you honestly asking me if I have the Pope's autograph?" asked Pierto, snorting back a laugh as his dug his hands into his pockets. "You know he doesn't sign them."
Where are you? Ah hah! He withdrew a small tin box and began to stretch out a roll of brittle white paper. There was just something innately satisfying about sprinkling out a straight dark line of tobacco and continuing it into a tight, perfectly cylindrical rollup.
"Not got a stamp on them or anything?" Rob continued thoughtfully.
"Nol. They're in the box on top of my wardrobe though if you want to check," offered Pierto, fumbling with his lighter until it produced a wobbly amber flame. He raised the nicotine to his lips and took a deep drag, savouring the deliciously foul flavour of smoke and ash.
"I see them," said Rob, stretching up a hairy arm towards the heavens. His hammy fingers brushed along the calloused wood until they met the polished rosemary casing.
If you drop that…but no, Rob grabbed it firmly and pried the lid open to reveal the innards, lined with purple velvet.
"Sure this isn't your ma's?" laughed the Scotsman.
No. It was a gift from my Father. This information was hardly likely to improve the situation though, and Pierto had signed up for a year of living with the specimen of post-pubescent manhood before him.
He shrugged and took another drag, trying hard to wince as Rob's mucky jeans connected with his fresh lilac-scented linen. It can be washed. Rob picked out the onyx beads and gave them a cursory jangle that sent his teeth rattling. Good God, he's not actually looking for a signature is he?
"No bad," said Rob, placing them back inside in a coiled heap that Pierto knew he would inevitably have to unpick. "So you reckon Oskar could borrow them?"
"If he wants," said Pierto nonchalantly, drumming a restless finger against the meagre desk shoved against the back wall.
"Class. You coming to Malone's tomorrow?"
"Maybe. I've got a doctor's appointment in the afternoon," said Pierto. Not a complete lie.
"Aye. Fair enough. See you there then," said Rob, the springs on his bed sighing with relief as the Scotsman departed his room with a cursory wave.
Pierto refolded the shirt and placed it carefully inside the chest of drawers. It had seemed like such a brilliant idea at the time, and truthfully, at five in the morning, after six shots of Jaeger, worse plans had been conceived. However, six hours later, his brain reduced to a fluffy ball of wasp infested candy floss, he was starting to have second thoughts. And third thoughts.
I am definitely living up to the stereotype, he mused, opening his window so the cigarette fumes could escape into the damp arms of a Scottish downpour. After the previous evening's crescendo of hail and thunder, the current lacklustre drizzle felt somewhat anticlimactic, as though the weather too, was suffering from a hangover, regurgitating what was left of last night's sleet onto the pavement and Lothian buses below.
Three hours, twenty-seven minutes until his first lecture, which made it roughly two hours and fifty-six minutes until he had to leave. Pierto gathered up the beads and shoved them into his pocket with the tobacco tin. He would deal with them later. Right now he craved a distraction, and he found it stashed under his pillow.
Uncanny X-Men. Jean Gray was about to join forces with the Hellfire club to capture the X-Men.
I have read this half a hundred times. The thick volumes, brand new and untouched from Waterstones, remained still on his shelf. Yet another stereotype to live up to. And who am I to disappoint? He rolled over on to his side, scotch air breathing down his neck as he turned the well-worn pages, once again reliving the nail-biting trepidation of his eight year old self, contained inside the pages.
Then there was a knock. A tap so gentle, he almost didn't hear it, but then it was followed by another. And another.
"Coming!" he yelled, tucking the comic book away under his pillow. It was most likely not Rob. Rob didn't do knocking, as he'd discovered half-way through getting changed last night.
Bird-girl? He didn't know the name of the Hungarian girl who slept two doors down from him. Only that she emerged every night at eight o'clock to heat up tomato soup in the microwave before retreating to her nest to blast out music that sounded a lot like a chorus of eagle's being battered to death with a guitar.
He opened the door. It wasn't bird-girl. Though it was, in fact, a girl.
"Um…hi…" she said, giving a nervous little wave. "I'm Emma…would you…would you mind giving me a hand? Er…do you know much about TV's?"
Her eyes wandered his face with usual pinch of surprise, before manners caught up with her and she lowered them to the floor, her cheeks flushing. Pierto, long used to such looks, politely ignored her curiosity, and nodded.
"Welsh?"
"Er…sorry?"
"Welsh. You're Welsh aren't you?" said Pierto, stepping out into the corridor.
"Yeah…and you're…French?"
Pierto shook his head and chuckled. "Close. Well. Not really. I suppose you could class me as Italian but I'm a bit of a mongrel."
She smiled. It was a nice smile, he couldn't help but notice. A sweet smile, though the word sweet could quintessentially sum her up from her mass of copper curls to the blue cat cooing at him from the front of her jumper. She was also quite pretty, incidentally, though she wore the nervous look of the perpetually apprehensive.
"How'd you know I was Welsh?" she asked, beckoning him down the corridor past bird-girl's domain. "I mean…the other Italian, y'know Alexia? She thought I was Irish."
He didn't know Alexia. It was odd how everyone seemed to automatically assume that all the foreigners knew each other. Maybe we don't integrate enough? The American girls Rob had been chatting to last night certainly seemed to travel around like a flock of giggling hens.
"I have a friend who's Welsh," he said, though he didn't really want to think of her. "Well, half Welsh. Born in Cardiff anyway. So TV. What's the problem?"
"It's not working right. I don't know if it's the signal or…" she trailed off as she pushed open the door to her bedroom; another long lost fraternal twin to his own accommodation.
Unlike his glorified cell though, hers was still half-naked. There were cardboard boxes lying under her bed; the cracks trickling down from the ceiling had yet to be covered with an appropriate poster, and there was a television perched precariously on the edge of her desk, almost nudged off by a vast collection of Bronte classics and Anne Rice novels.
"I only got here the other day," said Emma, brushing a curl out of her face. "I'm the last to arrive, aren't I? How many is there?"
"On this floor, ten," said Pierto, eyeing the fuzzy lines blurry across the screen. It was like looking at an artist's impression of the inside of his head.
"Ten," repeated Emma, almost breathlessly.
"Not as bad as the other block. I think they have fifteen and one toilet," said Pierto bending down to diagnose his electronic patient.
"Eww…." Said Emma, wrinkling her nose. "I think I'd rather pitch a tent up outside."
"There's a bus shelter down the street," suggested Pierto, tilting his head and adopting what he sincerely hoped was a knowing expression.
He hovered over the tangled mass of wires and prodded one of them earnestly. It would probably not be best to employ the method of correction he normally reserved for his own appliances.
"Would you like a cup of coffee? Or tea?" asked Emma hopefully.
"Er…Sie…, if you're sure it's not too much trouble?"
Emma smiled again, and eagerly rebuffed the idea before stretching the offer to include a slice of her mother's homemade carrot cake.
Pierto nodded and waited until she was gone from the room before giving the television set one last examination, and chance for mercy. When the wave of grey and black lines declined, he raised his fist and brought it down on top of the monitor.
The uneasy sea of monotone blinked at him; there was a squirt of colour behind the glass, and a very proper English accent called to him.
"And today at her royal residence in Balmoral, Her Majesty the Queen, was pleased to greet the Queen Dowager of Romania. This occasion marks the Queen Dowager's first official outing since the unfortunate-
"Oh! Is it working?"
"Almost," said Pierto, giving the set another furtive bash as Emma re-entered the room, her arms laden with two mugs of coffee and what looked like half a cake, complete with pale icing.
-And now for the weather with Fiona McKenzie. So Fiona-
"Well at least we've got sound," said Emma, setting down the cake on the desk next to him.
"Sie. To every cloud…" said Pierto, hunching back to admire what several hard thumps had accomplished. There was, if you squinted hard enough, a pinkish outline of the weatherwoman, though it looked like she'd swallowed a beach ball.
"They're always pregnant," remarked Emma, raising the mug with TMNT splashed across its face, to her lips. "Last one was so fat, I couldn't bloody see what was going on back home."
"We had that problem as well," said Pierto conversationally, wondering if the enormous slab of cake might prove to be a more convincing weapon to use against the set than his own fist. "Though he was just fat. Not pregnant."
"So where's home for you? I mean, I know you're Italian but-
"-Rome," said Pierto, taking a sip of coffee. It was saturated with sugar. "Rome is home." Or at least Rome was home. "Though there's some debate about that now. What about you? I mean, I don't know much about Wales but…"
"Cefn-coed-y-cymmer."
"I beg your pardon?" said Pierto, repeating the name several times inside his head and once aloud, but coming up with nothing.
"Cefn-coed-y-cymmer," said Emma, grinning, "It's Welsh. Don't worry, half the people that live there can't pronounce it right. Have some cake, will you? If I eat all that, I'll end up bigger than her."
Pierto obliged her, cake sticking unpleasantly to his fingers as he nibbled at the icing. As far as cake went, it was delicious but he could see the crumbs he was making peppering her carpet, and felt guilty for the mess. "That's fine then. For a moment, I thought that twelve years' worth of English lessons had just gone out the window," said Pierto. "Sound lovely though."
"It's alright. When it isn't raining."
"Nice for you to get a change of scenery then," said Pierto, nodding his head towards the window as picked a stray sultana off the floor.
"You lived in Rome," said Emma, relaxing enough to sit comfortably on her bed. "If I lived there, I'd never leave. You're brave you know…I mean I felt bad going halfway across the country. You're almost halfway around the planet."
"Not really," said Pierto, turning his attention back to the television. I wanted to go to Canada. Scotland had been his backup plan but it still didn't feel like far enough. No. I never wanted to go to Canada. Or even here. I want to be in Argentina.
Did Emma smoke? Probably not. He would have to wait to light up a cigarette, though he was having a hard time feeling for his faithful tin, obscured by a mish-mash of beads.
"Well, okay not halfway around the planet," said Emma, rolling her eyes and cradling her coffee, "I mean, you'll be able to go home at Christmas, won't you? I mean, the Korean girl I met yesterday said she won't be able too. I couldn't imagine that, could you?"
Yes, thought Pierto, something slipping, sinking, deep, deep down inside him. Yes, I can imagine that.
Inside his pockets, his raked the rosary beads, strangling them until he felt the chain burst.
*Just a brief note to address that, yes, this story has once again been subject to a rewrite. If you are new to this story, then please ignore this part of the message. If you are not, and you have not done so already, please go back and read the new content. This will hopefully be the last rewrite, as I have the next five chapters more or less planned out. The next chapter will be featuring young Integra so keep an eye out for it.
Mooblue22
